Career
The son of a New York City florist, Abolafia may have coined the phrase, "Make love, not war!", and was part of the Greenwich Village art scene in the 1960s. In this capacity, he organized "love-ins" and "happenings" that combined music, poetry and audience participation, inspiring the New York press to crown him “The Love King”. He was a long-time resident of the Lower East Side, where he ran a homeless shelter for wayward youths and other transients.
He published a pornographic/countercultural newspaper, Abolafia"s Luv, and had several art exhibitions between 1967-1970.
Abolafia inspired the creation of the Exotic Erotic Ball in 1979 in San Francisco, which was held annually for more than three decades until it was canceled in 2010. He was a "descendent of the Abolafias—writers of the Kabbala"
Louis Abolafia died of a drug overdose in 1995 in California, aged 54.